If you're interested, maybe read the complete intercourse between pomophobe and I. Pomophobe referred to a "background or framework that we are always already in". If "the background" is like the context, within which language exists, then this context is thoughts and opinions, some expressed, some not. If you think about the nature of opinions which have never before been expressed, I think you should see that they would mostly disagree with one another.

If you cannot see this, then I don't think there's much that I can do to help you to see it, because I cannot show you unexpressed opinions, you can only find them for yourself. It is possible that you are not the creative type, and so you derive your opinions from others, and therefore are unfamiliar with opinions which have never been expressed before. To "agree" means that the opinion is similar to another, but what makes an opinion "original" is its difference from all others.

Pomophobe referred to a "background or framework that we are always already in". If "the background" is like the context, within which language exists, then this context is thoughts and opinions, some expressed, some not. — Metaphysician Undercover

So the foreground is expressed opinions and the background is unexpressed opinions, right? And when you said that the background of unexpressed opinions is disagreement, you were saying that all unexpressed opinions are a disagreement, like I inferred. And you are only now making the qualification that unexpressed opinions "mostly disagree with one another" to avoid the contradiction. Otherwise, explain what is the foreground of unexpressed opinions.

The idea in PI 128 is a kind of ideal, i.e., if we were able to apply Wittgenstein's methods (it's not method by the way), then clarity would be achieved. There would be no debating the obvious, we would all agree, and thus no thesis or theses to advance.

The problem according PI 129 is that what's hidden is what's before our eyes, it's something so familiar that we tend to ignore or miss it because of its "simplicity," or again, its "familiarity." It seems as though the answer to our question or confusion lies in the open, which means according Wittgenstein, that we fail to be struck by it. However, once seen in a new light, it becomes "striking" and "powerful."

A Note of Clarity:

In the first paragraph I speak of an ideal, but this should not be confused with the idea that there is some perfect sense to all our statements, in other words, some meaning that eradicates vagueness. No, the ideal or the clarity spoken of, is the realization the our statements of ordinary use, are in perfect order just as they are. This is difficult to grasp, because when we encounter a vague statement, the tendency is to what to explain it further, but there may not be a need for further explanation. Exactness is not always necessary.

So the foreground is expressed opinions and the background is unexpressed opinions, right? — Luke

No, I do not think you can correlate these two divisions precisely in this way. There is a foreground and a background, also there are expressed opinions and unexpressed opinions, and the two correlate roughly, but not precisely or exactly. So the background enters into expressed opinions, in things like philosophy and metaphysics, and in creative acts unexpressed opinions enter into the foreground, so there is overlap.

The appearance of contradiction which you refer to only occurs when you attempt to precisely correlate divisions of distinct categories. This is the deficiency of inductive reasoning, when we correlate distinct categories to state a rule, the exception to the rule creates the appearance of contradiction. For example, you attempted to precisely correlate the division between expressed and unexpressed opinions, with the division between agreement and disagreement, so that all unexpressed opinions would disagree, and all expressed opinions would agree. But it is clearly evident that some expressed opinions disagree and also some unexpressed opinions might agree. However, it may still be the case that expressed opinions agree to a large extent, and unexpressed opinions disagree to a large extent, so there would still be a correlation to be made, but not an exact or precise correlation. Since I claimed a correlation of sorts, and you interpreted that this correlation ought to be an exact or precise correlation, when I was really speaking in terms of rough boundaries, you apprehended a contradiction. How would you suggest a boundary between the foreground and background be drawn?

How would you suggest a boundary between the foreground and background be drawn? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know since I have no idea what these terms mean. I've asked you to explain what you mean by 'foreground' and 'background' in my last two posts.

The idea in PI 128 is a kind of ideal, i.e., if we were able to apply Wittgenstein's methods (it's not method by the way), then clarity would be achieved. There would be no debating the obvious, we would all agree, and thus no thesis or theses to advance. — Sam26

Wouldn't the thesis (which stated the obvious) have to be advanced before we could agree on it?

The problem according PI 129 is that what's hidden is what's before our eyes, it's something so familiar that we tend to ignore or miss it because of its "simplicity," or again, its "familiarity." It seems as though the answer to our question or confusion lies in the open, which means according Wittgenstein, that we fail to be struck by it. However, once seen anew, it becomes "striking" and "powerful." — Sam26

Perhaps the strikingly obvious thing is that a thesis must be advanced before it can be agreed on.

I don't know since I have no idea what these terms mean. I've asked you to explain what you mean by 'foreground' and 'background' in my last two posts. — Luke

"Background" was Pomophobe's term so it probably really only makes sense in the context of that discussion. I think I understood what was meant, maybe I didn't. But you're trying to pull that term out of its context, and oppose it to "foreground". Maybe you think that might help you to understand it, but it might just create confusion if it was never used as an opposition to "foreground". I think it was used more like the context, or environment, within which something exists.

I'm sorry MU, but I'm not going to waste my time going back and forth arguing with your private interpretations of Wittgenstein. I think it ruins the thread.

Maybe you think that might help you to understand it, but it might just create confusion if it was never used as an opposition to "foreground" — Metaphysician Undercover

You introduced the 'foreground' concept into the discussion when you said:

"Background" implies that there is also a "foreground", so your representation of the background as "all" is unjustified. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you explain it. Or else stop making shit up.

Is it not obvious to you though, that a thesis must be stated before it can be agreed to? So this statement of yours makes no sense: "we would all agree, and thus no thesis or theses to advance". You are saying that there is no point in advancing the thesis which everyone will agree with. That's like saying that there is no point in carrying out the activity which I am certain to have success at. How does that make sense to you?

I only introduced "foreground" because it was necessary to counter your claim of contradiction.

You introduced 'foreground' into the discussion as an "opposition" to 'background' and now you're claiming it was never used in this way. You're full of shit. Stop interrupting the discussion.

Actually Luke, I was having a very relevant and interesting conversation with Pomophobe, and the term was not used that way until you interrupted, changing the subject, with a complete straw man accusation of contradiction. Now you insist on continuing your digression into some sort of ad hom nonsense. Why did you interrupt in the first place if you had no interest in the subject being discussed?

You have no interest in even trying to understand Wittgenstein.

Maybe we can keep this thread alive.

Another good book to read on language is "Sense and Sensibilia," which is reconstructed from the manuscript notes of J. L. Austin.

Wouldn't the thesis (which stated the obvious) have to be advanced before we could agree on it? — Metaphysician Undercover

There is tacit agreement. And there must be in relation to language, because the agreement has to be there before anything like a thesis could be stated.

I don't agree with that. And the reason is that naming is essentially random. So prior to the existence of language any particular part of the reality which surrounds us could be called by any name whatsoever. Things do not have names until after there is agreement that this will be the thing's name. And this agreement can only be produced by someone suggesting names for things. Therefore the existence of the name is prior to the existence of the agreement that this name names this thing. So in relation to things spoken about with language, agreement is posterior to the language which speaks of the things, that agreement being dependent on the language which speaks of them. This must also be true in the case of stating a thesis. Agreement concerning the things spoken of in the thesis can only occur after the thesis is stated.

This leaves the response of "I knew that already", in a precarious position. Suppose someone states, for the first time ever, the most extremely obvious hypothesis, and everyone agrees, thinking "I knew that already". How did you already know that? It's impossible that someone told it to you already. And it's not likely that everyone who says "I knew that already" had already thought up that very hypothesis, or someone else would have already stated it. So this only leaves something like Plato's theory of recollection. But that's absurd to think that we already know everything before being taught it, and learning is just recollecting what we've already known - forever, I suppose. What does it mean to be struck with something which is so agreeable to you, it's as if you already knew it, yet it's never been taught to you before, and it's just being apprehended by your mind now? We can't truthfully say "I knew that already", because that particular thing is just being demonstrated now. But it's so consistent with everything else which we already know, and therefore so agreeable, that it's as if we already knew it.

In case it helps, I gathered together a few quotes that all hammer on the right nail. Looking at the thread, I think others are also seeing it my way.

All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments; no, it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life.
...
I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.
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What has to be accepted, the given, is — so one could say — forms of life.
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One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.
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When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly.
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An entire mythology is stored within our language.
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If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don't have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.
...

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something — because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him. — And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.
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At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.
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What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.
— Wittgenstein

<emphasis added>

The 'environment' or 'background' or 'form of life' is 'most powerful' because it's a 'vision' of the world we act on and speak from without even being able to 'debate' it first. It's the stuff that we don't know we know. It's our deepest form of belief, except that 'belief' suggests unconscious propositions. I can't doubt my ability to use the word 'hand,' since I need that ability before I even get started.

The last quote makes clear that what's being said is conceptually easy but emotionally difficult. The night is dark and full of terrors. It's not easy to accept a 'blind' embeddedness that makes our little torch of artificial constructions possible in the first place. 'Once out of nature I shall never take my bodily form from any natural thing....'

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that's a tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell them: "This fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy." — Wittgenstein

We already know how to use the word 'know.' But that doesn't mean that such knowledge is propositional. It's instead the kind of knowledge that makes propositions possible.

We'd 'all agree' that the tree was a tree. That's why it's so weird to say 'I know that that's a tree,' and that's why Wittgenstein has to explain that they are being philosophical (in his pejorative sense) instead of watching a baby learn to talk.

Things do not have names until after there is agreement that this will be the thing's name. And this agreement can only be produced by someone suggesting names for things. — Metaphysician Undercover

First sentence is fine. but how can the suggestion be made until we have agreed that 'name' and 'suggestion' mean what we agree they do? And when I say 'agree', there is of course no question of you or I having any significant impact on the naming of much other than our children, and possibly a plant variety we have developed. The distinction between a tree and a shrub, for instance, is pretty well established to the extent that you and I can argue about it with some hope of arriving at a resolution that is not based on our reaching an agreement but on our learning the agreement that has already been made by generations of yore. Heather has a branching woody stem with leaves on, and lives a long time, but there is a matter of scale... Is a sapling a small tree? (Is a foetus a small human?) We don't agree to speak English and then start speaking it; that agreement must be in place before we can speak (that, or an agreement to speak Welsh, or something).

Children have to be agreeable, and learn the language(s) they are immersed in, but that agreement cannot be expressed until they have already agree and learned.

§129

This seems like more like rhetorical bluster than anything of conceptual import, much like his grumbling about 'depth' and 'surface' in §111: an effort to change our metaphors, our attitudes.

§130, §131

This pair of remarks are one of a few handful in this section, I think, where Witty actually goes about spelling out - making explicit - why he keeps insisting on the 'descriptive' nature of his investigations, and why there is no 'explanation' in them. They are best approached, imo, as methodological pointers.

The most important thing they insist upon is the presentation of 'objects of comparison', where the objects in question are language-games. The idea is that, by simply putting language-games 'side-by-side', as it were, this 'mere' act of showing or exhibiting, tells us something about language: "throws light on features of our language." This ought to seem puzzling: how can mere exhibition make philosophical problems "completely disappear" (§133)? (I have in mind the distinction between showing and saying; the suggestion here seems to something like: by 'showing', rather than 'telling', we make philosophical problems disappear).

But how to understand this distinction? Well, consider the alternative to the 'method of comparison': when, instead of treating a language-game as something to be compared against another language-game, we treat it as something "to which reality must correspond." That is, rather than a 'language-game to language-game' comparison, we expect a 'language-game to reality' comparison. This is the trap - the 'dogmatism' - that "we fall so easily into when doing philosophy". Reality here stands for the 'ideal' against which philosophy treats language-games as having to measure up to (like Witty in the TLP).

But Witty's 'investigations' do not proceed along these lines: his investigations simply compare language-games to other language-games. And there is no measuring-up to do in these comparisons, no ideals which to aim at: only the bringing out of "similarities and dissimilarities". This is why 'our clear and simple language-games' are not 'preliminary studies': there is nothing they are 'preliminary' to - no end result (no ideal) of which they count as the first step towards. The 'illusions' of philosophy are brought out when we forget this.

---

I think it's hard to really convey what all this means without giving concrete examples, so I think one nice one is the one provided by Witty himself in §1: Augustine's naming of objects. Witty's 'problem' with this language-game is not that it does not somehow 'match up with reality' - whatever that could mean. His problem is that it is taken for a general picture of how language works. In order to see what is 'wrong' with this generalization, one provides a different kind of language-game: a game like that of 'blocks!' and 'slabs' in §2. When you place these two language-games side-by-side, one begins to understand the limits of each, in comparison with each other, with respect to the purpose of each.

So one does not provide a 'theory' of why Augustine is wrong to generalize his language-game as he does: one simply shows another possibility, and this showing 'sheds light', though its 'similarities and differences', on the limits of generalizing the latter. One should thus also keep in mind §104: "We take the possibility of comparison, which impresses us, as the perception of a highly general state of affairs." But as §131 says, the 'model' must be presented as a model, as a object of comparison, and not a 'general state of affairs'.

This is why Witty insists that his 'method' here is descriptive: it does not offer theories to contest other theories - it simply places language-games side-by-side in order to point out the limits and utility of each, with respect to the purpose each is meant to fulfil.

First sentence is fine. but how can the suggestion be made until we have agreed that 'name' and 'suggestion' mean what we agree they do? — unenlightened

I don't see the problem. People make noises without any agreement as to what the noise means.

The distinction between a tree and a shrub, for instance, is pretty well established to the extent that you and I can argue about it with some hope of arriving at a resolution that is not based on our reaching an agreement but on our learning the agreement that has already been made by generations of yore. — unenlightened

I'm talking about how that agreement made by generations of yore came into existence. The spoken word must be prior to the agreement as to what the word means. Therefore it is impossible that language is built on agreement.

This pair of remarks are one of a few handful in this section, I think, where Witty actually goes about spelling out - making explicit - why he keeps insisting on the 'descriptive' nature of his investigations, and why there is no 'explanation' in them. They are best approached, imo, as methodological pointers. — StreetlightX

The method described is inconsistent with "no need for explanation". To arrange things, give them an order (132) for the purpose of clarity, is to "explain".

As stated at 132, there are many possible orders, arrangements which could be made in the act of comparing the language-games, perhaps orders could be established for purposes other than clarity. Wittgenstein has chosen "clarity" as the purpose for the ordering, and so he has chosen to explanation.

I'm talking about how that agreement made by generations of yore came into existence. The spoken word must be prior to the agreement as to what the word means. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. one can describe the process, and I have done so in this thread. A cry of alarm comes to be understood by others as indicating danger, and then the difference between the sound made when looking up and looking down due to stretching of the throat becomes indicative of the direction of the threat. so now there are 2 words that mean danger from above and danger from below respectively. BUT no one has defined them except me; no agreement has been made explicit, but by means of memory and habit, a mutuality of understanding arises. Agreement is reached without ever being expressed.

Much later, a philosopher come along and tries to make explicit all the agreements that have been reached in this way, and finds it rather difficult.

This seems like more like rhetorical bluster than anything of conceptual import, much like his grumbling about 'depth' and 'surface' in §111: an effort to change our metaphors, our attitudes. — StreetlightX

PI 129
I think this paragraph is much more important than just rhetorical bluster. It goes to the heart of much of what he's saying. We often miss the obvious in spite of it being "always before our eyes." It's as if we have to be reminded over and over again in order to see the obvious. This is partly what Wittgenstein does with the language-games by comparing and contrasting similarities and dissimilarities.

And what you call grumbling about 'depth' and 'surface' grammar is partly what we miss, i.e., we are fooled by propositions that have the same surface grammar. For example, "All rods have length," and "All roses have thorns," have the same surface grammar (the same sentence structure) - we can imagine roses without thorns, but not rods without length (depth grammar that goes beyond sentence structure). You can also see this with sentences about time. Compare the river flows with time flows.

Agreement is reached without ever being expressed. — unenlightened

The point though is that the words must be expressed before they can be agreed on, so agreement follow language.

There is a sort of paradox involved with the idea of describing language. When we describe something we state, using language, how the thing appears to be. We do not alter the thing described, we leave it untouched, just described. We go around it with our words, so to speak. But if language is the thing we want to describe, and we must use language to describe things, it is impossible to leave language untouched in the act of describing language, because we would need to use language in describing itself. So a proper description of language is impossible. Language is the tool which we use to describe things, so if a hammer is the tool which we use to hit things, then trying to describe language is like trying to hit the hammer with the hammer.

Wittgenstein has devised an ingenious way around this paradox, by seeking to describe the activity which language is involved in, rather than trying to describe language itself. The activity is called language-games. So the language-games take the place of language, as something which can be described, the activity which the tool is used for. He is describing what we are doing with language (playing games) rather than trying to describe what language is (which is impossible due to the paradox). The problem now, at this point in the text, is that he wants to treat distinct language-games as distinct objects, to be compared, instead of adhering to the principle, that what is being described is the activity which language is being used for. We ought to maintain Wittgenstein's principle, that different language-games are just different ways of carrying out the same type of activity, i.e. the sort of activity which language is used for. However, he wants to set them off as distinct objects which can be arranged or ordered. So he now falls into the trap of the paradox, setting up language-games (as distinct objects, like distinct languages) to be compared and described individually, rather than describing language-games as the activity which language is used for.

Is it not obvious to you though, that a thesis must be stated before it can be agreed to? — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreement is reached without ever being expressed.
— unenlightened

The point though is that the words must be expressed before they can be agreed on, so agreement follow language. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think the point is now pointing the opposite way to the way it was pointing before, so I'll leave it there.

I think this paragraph is much more important than just rhetorical bluster. It goes to the heart of much of what he's saying. We often miss the obvious in spite of it being "always before our eyes." It's as if we have to be reminded over and over again in order to see the obvious. — Sam26

Right. Wittgenstein's comments at §111 and §129 (and his other comments on philosophy in the early 100s) are more of a corrective to his own earlier (esp. Tractatus) 'ideal' misconceptions and views than they are a commentary on traditional philosophy in general.

I'm not sure what "conceptual import" is supposed to mean, but I doubt that it has greater philosophical import than "an effort to change our metaphors [and] attitudes". It would be unwise to reject the latter as "bluster".

Also, for what it's worth in relation to the concurrent discussion, I never agreed to speak English.

I'm starting a forum on just Wittgenstein. I'm trying to get all my writing together in one spot. It would be good to have you and a few others as posters from time-to-time.

https://philosophicalthinking.createaforum.com/index.php

Thanks, I'll take a look.

§132. I find the following quotes from Lee Braver's Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger are helpful in understanding Wittgenstein's reference to the 'idling' of language:

Understanding lives in use, much the way understanding how to ride a bicycle occurs in riding it and vanishes if we attempt to do so intentionally or to articulate this ability.

If flowing absorption characterizes normal use, stopping and staring are exemplary modes of philosophical observation.

Wittgenstein singles out similar unusual behaviors, especially repeating a phrase or word over and over to oneself and focusing intently (often introspectively) on something like the experience of reading (“as it were attending closely to what happened in reading, you seemed to be observing reading as under a magnifying glass”). An epistemological tragedy ensues: the very attempt to achieve a clear view of matters by suspending usage renders them opaque, like shining light on a developing picture. This is what Wittgenstein means by his famous claim that “the confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.” As long as language is working an honest job in plain circumstances, its use comes easily; it is when we stop and stare that it baffles.

...the philosopher knows less than the average person because disengagement suspends her usual mastery of grammar...

The inability to answer philosophical questions does not reveal ignorance; it manufactures it.